


say you're my lover, say you're my own (tilt my chin back and slit my throat)

by simplysweetperfection (tinydemons)



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:19:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3880276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinydemons/pseuds/simplysweetperfection
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How many are there in your camp?" Anya asks over and over and over and --</p><p>"None," you sob, "they're all dead. None. Please, they're dead. <em>Please</em>."</p>
            </blockquote>





	say you're my lover, say you're my own (tilt my chin back and slit my throat)

**Author's Note:**

> uh so if you need your characters to be good moral people this might not be the fic for you. if you have any triggers this might not be the fic for you. if you're squeamish at all when it comes to violence this is might not be the fic for you.
> 
> title roughly comes from [Truth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtPK0gRdFgI) by Alexander Ebert

Anya brings you to a village only a few miles from your old camp.

Your hands are bound and your wrists are raw when she shoves in you in the first hut she finds. There are no windows and the fire sputters out after enough time has passed, leaving you in darkness. She keeps you there for minutes? hours? days? you don't know. You haven't eaten since that last meal in Mount Weather, and even then you vomited up what little remained. Your stomach growls and your temple throbs and you can't think. How are you supposed to get out of this?

When Anya finally comes for you there is darkness behind the open door. Two big Grounders file in behind her and hold you down while she shoves a ball of cloth in your mouth. She ties another piece tight enough that you cannot scream and stuffs a black hood over your head as well. You count your paces when they push you from the hut and listen carefully for any sounds of life other than your guards.

You start to panic when they don't stop walking for several minutes. Your hands are tingling and it is hard to breath in the stuffy hood. You thrash a little, striking out with your bound wrists, seeking contact with some sort of sensitive point. You hear a grunt when your elbow knocks against someone hard before a foot kicks the back of your left knee. You fall.

" _Daun ste pleni_ ," someone barks, then, "Enough."

They throw you on a horse, your hip pressed against the warmth of another body, and then they tie your legs together as well. You are a perfectly wrapped parcel -- for who you do not know.

You ride in silence.

 

 

When you were younger you used to stand on C deck and stare out the port side window into the vacuum of space. The glass would be cool under your palm and the stars seemed to burst to life every time you blinked, nebulas in your pupils and tears of radiation down your cheeks. You were eight, maybe nine, and you would spend undefinable amounts of time staring out into the black, reciting back your physics homework.

Do you know the composition of the universe? One part atoms, the remnants of stars and, as some like to believe, dusted with holiness. These are the things you can touch, taste, smell. The entire spectrum of human existence dances on the pin of electrons, neutrons, protons. These are the building blocks of everything they tell you.

Do you know the composition of the universe? Two parts dark energy and dark matter. But what does that mean? They tell you the universe is infinite, but how can something that doesn't exist be most of infinity? How can you fraction the cosmos into a neat little pie chart? Here, your teacher used to say pointing at a wedge of green, 4% of the known universe built from atoms, 23% dark matter, and 73% dark energy. Here, the universe will swallow you whole if you give it the chance and not even realize.

You never forgot that lesson.

Standing on C deck staring out into the abyss and whispering your physics vocabulary under your breath, you could see millions of years forward and back, soak in deadly ultraviolet rays from the sun, feel the universe at the ends of your fingertips. You wondered how long until the abyss would rear up and pluck you from the Ark, dragging you down, down, down.

You just never thought you'd hit the ground along the way.

 

 

Who knows how long it has been by the time the horse shuffles to a stop beneath you and the person behind you unsaddles. They pull you to the ground, cutting your feet free and tug you forward so that you stumble. The dagger is pressed to your side.

"Try anything," they hiss in your ear, "and I will gut you like a fish."

You are still gagged, you could not retort even if you wanted to. They walk you some more, a hand at your elbow guiding you, and when you count your steps, strain your ears, you can hear the undeniable sounds of city life. There is so much of it, it makes your head spin. You don't think you have ever heard quite so much going on at once, didn't know the Grounders were capable of it. You want to ask _where are we_ , but it comes out a grunt.

" _Shof op_."

The fingers against your arm pinch your skin sharply, pulling a wince from you. You're not sure, but you think it's Anya. Just a few days ago you would have drawn the smallest of comfort from that fact. Not any longer.

Mud clings to your boots, making a wet suction noise every time you take a blind step, and the air is cold on the exposed skin at your throat, your hands, your waist. You shiver, because of the air you tell yourself, and not how long you must march to die. That's how this is going to end, isn't it? The Grounders don't seem to care how much you could offer them, too stubbornly set in their ways and their wars. It's sick, forcing you to walk to the lip of your own grave, you think, it's savage.

But the Ark wasn't much better. Forcing people to walk to an airlock where they were to be vented, their bare feet cold on the metal and hands tied together like yours are now. Which way would you prefer to die? At the hands of savage warriors on the ground or to the unflinching cosmos that warp your body beyond recognition; boiling your blood, swelling your body twice its normal size, burning your flesh from the harsh sun rays.

Is this what your father felt? This terrible panic crawling up his throat, settling between his teeth until he couldn't wash the taste from his mouth. You remember his shaking hands around your wrist as he pressed that old broken watch into your palm. You remember the way he inhaled before he was launched into space and the only thing you could think was, no -- don't breathe. Did your father's lungs explode as he tumbled through infinity?

Like father, like daughter. You turn your wrists and ache to scream around the wet cloth in your mouth.

 

 

You don't.

 

 

"We're not going back to your dropship. You killed 300 of my warriors. I can't show my face without a prize," Anya said so long ago.

And why didn't you run? Oh god, why didn't you run?

 

 

You haven't seen anyone in days. Not since Anya ripped the hood from your head and untied your wrists. She locked the door behind her when she left, leaving you in darkness apart from a small window in the corner of the cell. It's night currently, the moon just barely visible from between the clouds. You study it, looking for that screaming man some say they can see. You never have. You don't know if that means anything.

You can't hear anything anymore apart from your rattling breath and groans when you move your sore body. You feel like you are slowly slipping into madness, stuck with nothing but your own demons and the memories of all the people you have killed. Their rotting faces and their burnt corpses seem to hiss at you from the darkness and ask why you let them die, why you flicked the switch that extinguished their lives. You listen to these voices realize you are frightened of quickly you are losing everything you built.

But this is the thing that scares you the most: you aren't sorry.

 

 

Have you put stock in dreams before? Not really. But now they are all you can think of.

(What else is there? What else is there? What else what else what else what else what else what else what -- )

Here's a dream:

You are standing at the edge of your utopia with one hand on a lever and the other around a bloody knife. You're watching Bellamy and Finn run towards you, the snakes nipping at their heels and -- there's not enough time. _I'm sorry_ , you mouth, _I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry._ You pull the lever and you watch the skin melt off their bones.

But that's not the end, no. Jasper touches your hand after everyone is ash in your lungs and you turn, blood splashing your face when the knife plunges into his neck. _I'm sorry_ , you murmur, _I'm sorry, I'm so so sorr_ y. Your fingers stroke through the hair at his forehead even as he is raised on those hooks in the mountain.

You can only pray they're all dead by the time the Reapers get to them.

Here's another dream:

You are strung between two poles, bare from the waist up and limp against your restraints while Anya presses a white hot poker against your ribs. You scream and choke on the smell of your own burning flesh and you sob at your fried nerves. There is blood in your mouth from when you bit your tongue, it runs down your chin and drips on your breasts.

"How many are there in your camp?" Anya asks over and over and over and --

"None," you sob, "they're all dead. None. Please, they're dead. _Please_."

 

 

Wait.

 

 

Are these really dreams?

 

 

When you were younger you used to stand on C deck and stare out the port side window into the vacuum of space. Physics would be warm on your tongue and the press of space would be cold against the glass and you spent your young years looking infinity in the face. You stare into a different kind of blackness now and laugh when the galaxies forms behind your eyelids.

Do you know the composition of the universe? One part agony, the raw press of screams tearing apart your throat and your mind. These are the things that will break you. It's hard to remember who you are and why you shouldn't confess every secret you've ever held, if only to make it stop for just a moment. Why shouldn't you? Why why why why --

Do you know the composition of the universe? Two parts will and determination. These are the things that help keep you alive to see the next day. You cry, you scream, you wish for death everyday but you do not break. Most times you see all those dead kids in the ground, their eyes gleaming when they watch you. _We died for your sins_ , they seem to say, _will you ruin that sacrifice with your sniveling?_ You bite your tongue until there is blood in your mouth and swallow down your confessions.

How did that old earth prayer go? Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. Isn't that something, a few simple words and you can cleanse yourself. You know now it's not nearly so easy.

 

 

Would Jake Griffin be proud of his daughter?

 

 

You imagine how you will die. Maybe they'll cut off your hands before they cut off your head. Maybe they'll starve you until you die hunched over, nothing more than a pile of skin and bones. Maybe they'll skewer you with a sword and leave you to bleed out on dirt. Maybe they'll --

 

 

They send a slave girl to tend to your wounds a few times. She is to check and make sure they have not started to rot with infection and to make sure you survive long enough for another round with Anya. She has cold nimble fingers when she works, careful to avoid looking at you too much. You watch her though, through heavy eyelids, and flinch every time she touches you.

She feeds you stale bread and she pours water between your lips, carefully wiping the excess that dribbles cold on your chest. She is gentle and kind and just as trapped as you.

"If you help me," you whisper one time, through bloodied lips, "I can help you."

Water sloshes over the sides of the cup, spilling over her hand and wrist when she jumps, startled. She meets your tired gaze before her eyes flicker back over her shoulder where two Grounder guards are standing, ever vigil at their posts.

You watch her throat move when she swallows and she says, " _Ai nou_ ," quietly from the side of her mouth before she cuts herself off. You have to lean closer to hear, but even then you don't understand.

"Please," you say. Your voice cracks.

She shakes her head and that's the end of it.

 

 

The slave girl keeps your secret but --

 

 

Next time, Anya pulls off each and every one of your fingernails and asks who sent the assassin.

You blackout from the pain and forget to tell her you don't understand what she means.

 

 

Here's the thing you miss about the Ark, though you're never brave enough to admit it out loud: you knew how you were going to die. You knew the science, you knew the rules, you knew that airlock would open to space and it would swallow you whole. Every time the guards would come around, cuffing your wrists together and chaining your legs, you thought, is this it? Were you about to follow your father?

But now you are still in a cell with its walls closing in and you have to listen to all the people you've done wrong and there is nothing more that you wish for than an easy end. You were promised a death in the cold emptiness of the universe on the Ark but what are you promised here? Blood and dirt and pain.

There was supposed to be a relief in the ground. Humanity was supposed to be washed clean in the rivers and oceans and they were supposed to grow in the mud, better and brighter. What a joke. Humanity dropped their children to die and let the earth poison the rest. Humanity rained down from above in burning bits of metal and died in fire, you remember.

You are the last of your people. And what a heavy burden it is.

 

 

The slave girl keeps your secret but it doesn't matter.

"We go to war," she says. There is dirt smeared around her eyes and down her cheeks. No, paint. War paint. Who could she possibly be going to war with? Everyone is dead.

"If you help me," she says to you, feeds you bread and sips of cool water, "I can help you."

She is gentle and kind and listening to your pleas.

"Alright," you say and sob in relief when she cuts you free.

 

 

It is three days later by the time Anya catches the assassin who slaughtered eighteen men, women, children. You can barely stand, let alone walk.

It is three days later by the time Finn dies from the shock of his wounds; two of his fingers missing, over one hundred cuts on his body, and his left eye nothing more than an empty socket. It is hours before the sun has risen and he's supposed to last until then, but the people of Tondc are rightfully angry. The Commander's sword never leaves its sheath.

 

 

When you were eight, maybe nine, you saw a man bleed out on your mother's operating table. Technically, you weren't supposed to be there. Technically, you had a physics test you were skipping but a note from your mother that would explain how sickly you were. It was a lie, one you thought your mother was barely capable of, but you learn later how very far that was from true.

There was an accident on Mecha station that didn't breach the hull, thank god, but instead left several workers with missing limbs and torn up skin. You had been helping your mother, sorting the supplies and memorizing the names of all the difficult chemicals locked in the cabinet. This was going to be your kingdom one day, you both knew, and your mother was eager for you to learn.

When you were eight, maybe nine, you learned how hot blood was that day, how it felt between your fingers and under your nails. You weren't supposed to be there, but wouldn't listen to your mother when she told you to leave. You think now maybe you should have. Maybe that moment changed something in you, altered your brain chemistry until you weren't the Clarke Griffin you were supposed to be.

See, here's the thing about that man who bled out on your mother's operating table: he cried until the end and you never once thought about slipping him another pill for the pain. Your father would have, Wells would have, even your mother would have if there wasn't three other men she had to save, but you? You didn't care enough to think of it in the first place. He would soon be dead anyways.

You held his grip with one hand and continued sorting supplies with the other, humming a song you've long since forgotten under your breath.

 

 

Would Jake Griffin --

 

 

The slave girl -- Lexa, who is not a slave girl at all -- is gentle and kind when she has no reason to be. She gives you a bed with soft furs and she feeds you, slowly at first so that you might regain your strength. It is startling to you, this Grounder's care.

"What do you want?" you ask her once when salve is tingling on your wounds and her fingers are still sticky with the stuff.

She stills over a bowl of freshly boiled water and tilts her head back, not quite looking at you. "Information," she says earnestly.

"Isn't that Anya's job?"

Lexa makes a face. "Anya was unsuccessful. And I do not want to hurt you if I don't have to."

And you believe her because it isn't hard to tell you're being played. Anya was the enforcer who shattered your world while Lexa was the sweet girl who helped you dull the edges that remained so they might not cut you as deep. You think you've read about these kinds of situations before, in your old history textbooks, but it is surprising just how little you care that it's happening to you. The pain has stopped and your people are dead, so really, what else could you lose?

 

 

If you help Lexa, she will help you.

 

 

When you were younger --

 

 

Finn has been dead for three months, but then again, how are you supposed to know?

 

 

When you were younger you used to stand on C deck and stare out the port side window into the vacuum of space. One time blood was crusted dry on your palms and the glass was cold on your fingertips. A man was being launched back into the atmosphere on the other side of the Ark, returning to the ground in death as they all would. You, however, were alive. You were reciting your physics homework in preparation for the make-up test tomorrow while the man you watched die burned up in reentry.

This is how your mother found you. She was a hero, saving those three other workers and treating all the other minor injuries that came after. Maybe that would have been you after a few years if the Ark wasn't dying and you weren't dropped to the ground to rot. Instead, you spent your afternoon with a dead man when you should have been in school while your mother was living up to the Griffin name.

"Clarke," she said, slowly, softly, one had on your shoulder and the other around your wrist. "Let's get you cleaned up."

You followed, ever the good little girl you were supposed to be.

And later, when she was scrubbing between your knuckles with a damp white cloth, you finally asked, "Did you save them?"

Your mother smiled a little, partly in relief, partly in pride. "Yeah," she said, half a warm sigh. You wanted to burn the memory into your skin, so that you might remember what it was to be a good person like your parents. Even then, you were afraid it of how empty you were.

That never really went away.

 

 

Lexa is gentle and kind when you push her back against the bed she has given you and straddle her legs. "Clarke?" she questions sharply, her fingers settling at your naked waist. You grab them, tugging them up to your bare breasts as you try to push the heavy overcoat she wears off her shoulders.

She raises a hand to your chin, pushing you back until she can see your flushed guilty face. "What are you doing?"

You think for a moment. You have seen the way she looks at you. It's nice. And you are so tired, of both being alone and being the last of your kind. You say, "I thought we were helping each other."

"This was not something -- " she starts, choking out an incoherent noise when you take two of her fingers into your mouth. You fold your tongue around her knuckles and try not think about how completely and utterly fucked in the head you are for wanting her like this.

Did the ground make you this way, or had it simply woken a part of you that you had tried to bury all your life? You don't know -- don't think you ever will.

You pull her wet fingers from your mouth and lick your lips slowly. She is still watching you with careful wide eyes. "Isn't this what you want?" you finally ask and push her hand between your legs.

" _Ai nou klin_ ," she mumbles but stops when you finally lean to press your lips to hers sloppily. She slips a finger inside of you, then two, and doesn't say anything when you cry later.

 

 

You are not supposed to care for the Grounder who ordered to string you up. You are not supposed to care for Lexa, the girl who fed you bread and was kind when no one else would be. You are not supposed to let the enemy crawl into your bed and kiss her until you can't remember your dead people.

And yet --

 

 

Would Jake Griffin be proud of his daughter?

No. Not at all.

**Author's Note:**

> also on [tumblr](http://protectlexa.tumblr.com/post/118174480690/say-youre-my-lover-say-youre-my-own-tilt-my).


End file.
